Spring festival vacation snuck up upon me, and soon after my final class I met with Tori at the train station and we were off to guangzhou. from there, after being stared at eating dinner, we boarded a night train to Nanning, our final stop in China. We passed the day as any Chinese would:… Read More Like a Well-Worn Shoe
With apologies for a lengthy layoff, I have refrained from writing for the simple purpose that I have very little news of note to share with the world at large. There are the small victories of acclimitization and adaption that I have written about before, the joys (and pratfalls) of teaching, and the ongoing challenge… Read More The #18 Twilight Blues
The flight out from Shenzhen was a piece of cake. The return flight, some five long days later, was not quite so simple. But more on that later. In what seems to be the fall fashion for inland cities, we landed in Chongqing in the morning, greeted by a blanket of fog and smog. Tori… Read More The Sichuan Episode
Once again, I have been granted a bit of vacation as a result of a school event wiping out several days of classes. My kids now have red banners in their classrooms from their Sports Day successes. I on the hand have a few pictures, a slight cold, a pullover, and a trilingual copy of… Read More A Hazy Shade of Winter
I’ve been somewhat inactive the past few weeks on the blog. This is in part owing to the current firewall block of Facebook in China, which I’ve been using to host my photos. The other component of this is that there has been little big news of note. The days and then weeks have gone… Read More Etched in Lore
I’ve been settled back in Shenzhen now for nearly almost two weeks. Spent time first in the hotel with all the other teachers, mostly the group of new folks who were up in Beijing for training with Tori. It was a bit overwhelming to be around so many foreigners in this town and some of… Read More Back in the Saddle
The last few days in Perth were passed away quietly out at my host’s place in the suburbs, winding down the hours and storing away the time there. It felt almost like being back in the states and the level of activity was low, though I’ve never scared roos bounding in the woods at dusk… Read More Feels Like Going Home
My departure from Adelaide was orderly and efficient, save for the airline actually weighing carryon baggage. Since when does anybody do that? They really try to squeeze your dollery-doos out and smile gently about it. At any rate, that was the only drama available for the evening and I had a row to myself on… Read More The Apprentice Apiarist of Regans Ford
Leaving the Outback I woke up the next morning in a bus station. This time it was a genuine bus station, with a roof and a garage and everything, as opposed to the service stations with motels that one passes through going down the Stuart Highway. It was Adelaide, a city with more people in… Read More Lazy Days in Adelaide
For the past week I have been whiling away my time in Alice Springs, a small city that is unremarkable in nearly everyway, save its location. Alice is set in the near-center of the continent, a lone outpost of civility (though it is a term used lightly) amidst the massive backdrop of the Outback. In… Read More At the Red Centre
Zak Abroad 